Top 5 Team Chat Apps for Your Business

Whether it’s at work or at home, nowadays most communication platforms use a form of chat for live instant messaging, and it makes perfect sense. Why? Because chat is immediate, mobile-first, supports all media types, is easy to operate, and most of the time, requires no training to start using it.

Your personal life aside, when it comes to the workplace, not just any solution will do. In the workplace, there are important considerations you need to bare in mind before making a decision to install a team chat app: Is it available to all employee devices? Will it be easy to onboard my team to the new communication tool? Is it cost effective for my business? Does it improve the way employees communicate? And so much more! We’ve done the heavy lifting for you and have listed our top 5 team chat apps, but as there are a variety of solutions available and multiple considerations to mull over, here are the main things we believe you should focus on when evaluating a team chat app for your business:

Ease of use – Easy. That’s a pretty tall word. To truly understand if the team chat app is easy to use, ask yourself these questions:

Is it suitable for all my employees? Will they be able to use it?

Will it be easy and not too expensive to onboard new employees?

Will my employees be able to adopt this tool as their daily-driver?

Depending on which hardware they use, is the solution I choose the most suitable? If you have a majority of non-desk employees vs. employees that are in front of a computer everyday, then choose one that best reflects your employee base.

Feature set – Does the team chat app have features I can easily implement and will improve our everyday communication:

Make sure the team chat app gets the basics right: team chat, private conversations, media sharing, location sharing, etc. Any additional features are a bonus to your business as a whole.

Are most of its features suitable for my employees and my business?

Does it serve a true business purpose or solve an actual problem?

Control and security – it’s a work tool, so:

How much control do I have over it?

Is it secure enough for my business?

Where the data is stored?

Do I want to allow employees the option to manipulate conversation content?

What kind of information do you want to share?

Is it vulnerable to commercial information?

Price – of course price of a team chat app plays a key role in your selection, so ask yourself:

Is it cost effective?

Is it worth the amount I pay?

What are the other benefits?

Is it scalable looking forward?

If I stick with it, will it cause me to spend more money later on modifications, like API’s and integrations?

Considering the above points, here are the five best team chat apps for your business:

If you have a majority of non-desk or less tech-savvy employees, then Connecteam is the perfect tool for you. After all, it was designed and built especially for desk-less employees. Not only is it super easy to use but it will enhance your day-to-day business routine. How? Connecteam allows for live chat group conversations, a directory for all work contacts, immediate updates with or without comments and likes, employee feedback surveys, a suggestion box and much, MUCH more. All data is documented on Connecteam’s secure cloud which you can access at anytime with no storage limit.

Connecteam is the only team chat app that allows you to add up to 200 users for a fixed low price, starting at $29/month and ranges only up to $72/month. If you need more than 200 users, there’s an Enterprise plan, also complete with fixed prices. Either way, Connecteam offers a free 21 day trial and a quick, easy on-boarding process, so you’ll have plenty of time to evaluate this solution.

Small teams that work in hi-tech can greatly benefit from Slack’s unique interface, it is an enterprise messaging and collaboration app. Slack is best known for its incredible integration capabilities and it also allows one-on-one and group chat, individual and team audio calls and video conferencing. All you need is an email to invite an employee to join Slack. It has three price ranges: free, standard ($8 per user/month), or plus ($15 per user/month). Each range has additional add-ons that can benefit your business needs, although you may need to pay extra.

Greatly integrate with Microsoft’s other apps and Skype as well. Audio and video calls are an incredible tool and if you’re a large organization, Microsoft Teams is best for you. Plus, if you already paid for Microsoft Office 365 Essentials or a Business account, integrating this chat app is simple. Pricing is similar to Slack – $5 per user/month or $12.50 per user/month for up to 300 users, both an annual commitment. They also have a free version to begin with, but keep in mind that Teams does require all users to have a Microsoft account.

Beekeeper refers to itself as an app that makes communicating with blue-collar and service-oriented workers simple. The integration process is suitable with HR software but it takes time. Users can receive company notifications and can send instant messages to other employees. Their encrypted data security means company data remains secure. If you want a price quote, you’ll need to contact Beekeeper directly.

If you’re a intra-corporate or government team, Troop Messenger is designed for you. With incredibly secure features and a large storage size, you can easily hold one-on-one or group conversations while screen-sharing, add video-calls and enjoy a desktop app. They offer a free plan for up to 50 users and an Enterprise plan for $5 per user/month.

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